100 cr defamation case: Court orders 'The Wire' to take down 14 articles against Bharat Biotech
A defamation suit of Rs. 100 crore was filed by pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech against the publisher of The Wire, its editors, and writers who have written denigrating articles against it.
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Hyderabad, Feb 24: In a major development, a Telangana Court has directed the leftist propaganda news portal 'The Wire' to take down over 14 articles published against Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech and the Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin developed by it.
This came after a defamation suit of Rs. 100 crore is filed by pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech against the publisher of The Wire, its editors, and writers who have written denigrating articles against it.
The Court directed the removal of 14 defamatory articles from the website and internet within 48 hours. It has also ordered The Wire, its editor Siddharth Vardarajan and the others named in the suit from publishing any defamatory articles relating to Bharat Biotech.
[BREAKING] In a 100 CRORE defamation case filed by BHARAT BIOTECH, Andhra Court ordered taking down of 14 articles on @thewire_in and restrained
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) February 23, 2022
1)THE WIRE
2) Siddharth Vardarajan
3) SR Bhatia
4) M.K. Venu &others
From publishing DEFAMATORY articles relating to @BharatBiotech pic.twitter.com/S5NL8E34XL
Bharat Biotech said that The Wire had published articles on its website with false allegations against Bharat Biotech and COVAXIN without there being any truth and proper verification of the facts which has severely damaged the reputation of the Petitioner.
Other than The Wire, the other defendants named in the case are Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, MK Bhanu, Neeta Sanghi, Vasudevan Mukunth, Shobhan Saxena, Florencia Costa, Prem Anand Murugan, Banjot Kaur, Priyanka Pulla, Seraj Ali, and Jammi Nagaraj Rao.
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Responding to the arguments, the court noted that even after the government had approved the vaccine, The Wire continued to publish reports against it. The court observed that only the Covaxin has been approved for the age group 15 to 18, but the portal still published reports which can lead to vaccine hesitancy.
COVAXIN® - Fact Check- Issued in Public Interest#Covaxin #COVID19Vaccine #COVID19 #BharatBiotech pic.twitter.com/MWclev1vae
— Bharat Biotech (@BharatBiotech) January 5, 2022
In January, Bharat Biotech had fact-checked certain media reports including TOI, The Wire and many mainstream news portals for reporting false claims and spreading lies against the vaccine and the company.
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